This invention relates to packet transmission systems operating with Bluetooth transmission protocols and more particularly to Bluetooth-enabled devices employed in the implementation of such systems.
As is well known, devices utilizing Bluetooth communication protocols have evolved in recent years to facilitate instantaneous short-range wireless digital communications among a wide range of dissimilar devices in a robust and secure manner.
Bluetooth-enabled devices utilize spread-spectrum frequency hopping techniques to exchange data with other Bluetooth-enabled devices after establishment of a radio connection between radio modules associated with the transmitting and receiving devices. Pursuant to Bluetooth protocols, the device initiating the connection (the master) establishes and controls communication with other connected devices (the slaves) in a piconet by transmitting packets in a unique channel hopping pattern whose frequency hops in each successive time slot are distributed in a quasi-random manner. The time slots used by the master and the slaves in a piconet for the common channel hopping pattern are synchronized.
A Bluetooth master using a single radio module cannot form simultaneous connections with devices on separate piconets. Nor has it been practical, up to now, to simultaneously operate separate radio modules that are co-located on a single device. One reason for this is that the simultaneously transmitted channel hopping patterns would be statistically subject to frequency “collisions” in certain time slots and thereby to an attendant loss of transmitted information.